


For All Those Gone

by TradeMark_Deception



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Aspects, Assassins, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Bounty Hunters, Even more liars, F/F, F/M, Knights - Freeform, Lots of character death, M/M, Monarchy, Murder, No pairings for the time being, Pairings will be added later on, Princes, Steampunk zombiehunter AU, lots of lies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:36:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TradeMark_Deception/pseuds/TradeMark_Deception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is John Egbert, the year is 1902, almost seventy years ago the Industrial Revolution began and almost fifty years ago the pandemic started nearly dooming the world you knew.  The pandemic  affected millions and caused those infected to become as cold and pale as a corpse and become cannibalistic.  The doctor called those infected, zombies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Earpieces and a Pearl Necklace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John is late for an important meeting with the leader to a group John's been invited to join.

Your name is John Egbert, the year is 1902, almost seventy years ago the Industrial Revolution began and almost fifty years ago the pandemic started nearly dooming the world you knew.  The pandemic  affected millions and caused those infected to become as cold and pale as a corpse and become cannibalistic.  The doctor called those infected, zombies.

And that is how you got here in an abandoned factory, out of breath, with a group of the zombies hot your tail and you’re supposed to be meeting another hunter in half an hour at some café in the Walled City.  Great, not only are you going to be late but you’re sweating and you probably smell too.

You really need this meeting to go well, you’ve been a lone ranger for the longest time and it would be nice to join a group for once.  You’ve tried several other groups before but it didn’t work out too well.

But that story’s for later for now you’re going to have to take care of those six zombies that finally broke in through the window.  You grab your hammer off your tool belt and put in the earpiece that was sitting in your pocket.  You turn the gears on the earpiece till it clicks four times and wait till its beeps.

The zombies begin to surround you.  The earpiece beeps.

“I’m going to be late.”

“How many?”

“Six.”

A zombie lungs at you, you swing with almost all your might, the zombie drops dead, it’s skull split open.

“Make that five.”

“Take your time, we’ll wait.”

Then the earpiece beeps.  That caused you to stop momentarily, you’ve talked to several group leaders before and not one has ever offered to wait for you.  At that moment, two of the remaining five jump at you.  You kill them easily.  Two more attack, two swings and they drop dead in heaps.  The remaining one has an injured leg and has been trying to escape since you killed the first one.  She’s growling and crawling away at a very slow speed, you feel somewhat bad for her.

You start walking towards her, she hisses at you and, in a vain attempt, tries to speed up.  You pull out a knife from your belt.  She looks at you and freezes, “Please…”

You forgot, some of them can talk, you look at her and notice something.  Her blonde hair is thick and short , and her skin has color.  She’s just been infected.

You adjust your glasses, “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes fall and she lays down on the concrete floor, “Do it.”

And you do, the knife leaves your hand and buries itself in her skull.  You sigh, lean down, and close her eyes.

You stand and leave the building.  That wasn’t the first time you ran into a newly infected and it definitely won’t be the last.  At the last second, you turn back into the building back to the newly infected woman’s corpse.  If she was newly infected, she should still have her identification cards with her.  You reach into her pockets and sure enough, she has her cards.  You put them in your pocket, take out your earpiece, and place that in your pocket along with the cards.  You take a step back and take a good look at the woman.  She’s wearing a nice shade of blue and her dress is a little torn, her nails are painted and she has marks on the bridge of her nose indicating she, at one point, wore glasses.  Your cousin Jake would have liked her, or at least her appearance.

You shake your head, you can’t think like that, it’s deadly.  It’s poison for the mind.

Then you notice she’s wearing a pearl necklace.  You carefully take it off her and place in your other pocket.  You have always done this, taken something off the corpse of a newly infected and their identification, so if you run into any family you can give them something to remember.

Now you take your leave, you’re already running late and you can’t guarantee that the new leader you’re supposed to be meeting hasn’t gotten tired of waiting and left already.  Internally you kick yourself for not learning the new leader’s name.  Smart move.

You know the new leader is a man because you have talked with him before but have never physically met the man.  That doesn’t sound too bad, but then you realize, he knows your name, you don’t know his.  That is a very bad thing.  A name can be the difference between life and death, hunter and criminal.  If this man doesn’t like you and if he deems you useless, he has power to ruin your life all because he knows your name.

You pull out your earpiece from your pocket and put it back on.  Four clicks and a beep later.

“I’m finished.  I should be there in thirty minutes or so”, you lie.

“Hmm, I don’t think so.”

“P-Pardon?”

“Well, your location indicates you’re about, oh I don’t know, an hour or so away.”

You don’t reply.

“Well, isn’t that true, John?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.  Also, John, don’t worry about the café, we won’t be meeting there.”

“Wait! What do you mean?”

The earpiece beeps and you throw it on the ground.  That’s it, that was your last hope of joining a group.  In the distance, you can see the outline of the Walled City, you cuss.

“My my, I thought you told me you liked pranks, John.”

You spin around to see a man approaching you.  The man is taller than you, has blonde hair, is wearing a red suit and goggles over his eyes, and more importantly the biggest and scariest looking sword you have ever seen.   You immediately grab the pistol from your tool belt, it’s not your favorite weapon but it’ll do at the moment. 

You aim at the man’s head, he freezes but doesn’t draw his sword.  He smirks at you, he’s confident that scares you.  Not many hunters are confident in their abilities but when they are, they don’t negotiate.

“How do you know my name?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know mine, John.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“That was the point, besides I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions.  Isn’t that right, John?”

“Quit saying my name as if we’re friends.  I don’t know you.”

“Shame.  Aren’t you supposed to be headed somewhere in the city?”

“They cancelled”, you answer while turning the safety on your gun off.

“Now if I remember correctly, I didn’t cancel on you, I just said we wouldn’t be meeting at the café.”

You lower your gun, he smiles, “Much better, John.  Besides, according to your reputation, guns aren’t your strong suit.”

“You’re the leader?”

“Is it all business with you or what?”

“Well, no…” you say sheepishly hanging your head a bit while you put back your pistol.

“Good.  Well I must say, for being the legendary John Egbert, you aren’t what I was expecting.”  He starts towards you again, and this time you walk towards him too.  You’re a little embarrassed at the fact you almost shot him.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“I don’t know, is it?” He smirks.

You laugh and smile, “Someone’s an enigma.”

He holds out his hand, his posture’s relaxed, “The name’s Dave Strider.  Welcome aboard Egbert.”

Dave smirks before stating, “We’d better get moving towards the city.  A couple of hungry eyes have watching us for a while now.”

You two begin walking towards the Walled City.  You walk in peaceful silence when something perks your curiosity, “How did you find me?”

Dave turns his head towards you and pulls out his earpiece, “You know, you can track someone with these as long as you can contact them.”

You reach in your pocket for your earpiece when you realize you left it on the ground outside the factory, “Damn it.”

“Don’t worry about it I’ll get you a new one, besides you probably need a new one if you couldn’t recognize my voice.”

“Anyways, why did you come and find me?”

“First off, you actually called to let me you were going to be late, which is quite noble in general.  But after ten minutes, you didn’t call saying you were on your way again, meaning you were dead or bailed.  Now I’m really not a patient man but I had faith in you so I came to see what happened.”

You nod and try to hide the fact you’re a little flattered that he had faith in you, because, despite your reputation, must people either don’t trust you or don’t have faith in you.

All of a sudden, you two are standing in front of the gate to the Walled City.  Dave walks over to the guard in the booth and shows the guard his and your identification.  You reach into your pocket and your identification cards are missing.  You pull out a pocket watch and your eyebrows furrow.  You two made it to the gate from the factory in twenty minutes, even if you were running the whole way you’d never make it to the gate in forty minutes.  You put the pocket watch back and turn back to the desert.  In the distance you can see the faint outline of the smoke stacks of the abandoned factory.

“You cards”, suddenly Dave’s next to you, handing your cards back.

“Thanks.”  You mutter, stilling looking at the factory.

The creaking of the gears and ropes pulling the gate up snaps you back to reality.  Dave starts walking into the city as soon as the gate’s above his head, you walk behind him a little cautiously.  And under your breath you mutter,

“You are certainly an enigma, Mr. Strider.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! This based off a conversation I had with my father while watching a show that mentioned this guy who made weapons themed for hunting zombies and when they showed a picture of the guy, he was dressed for the steampunk subgenre. Out of that came this. As a side note the zombies move at about the same as a normal human. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, I hope you enjoy this. Leave comments, kudos, and whatever else you leave here. Ok I'll shut up now.


	2. The Blind Beggar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John runs into a blind beggar, all while Dave and Rose just observe from the sidelines.

Your name is Dave Strider and you are currently walking into the Walled City with a legend walking behind you.  Of course, you’ll never admit that out loud.  But on the inside, a very small part of your ego can’t get over the fact John Egbert is joining your group.  Thankfully, you’ve practiced your stoic façade enough so your expression gives nothing away.  But the smug smirk you wear might say something.

The main street is filled with people varying from the poorest peasants to the lower middle class, if you can even call it that.  The gap between the royal and the poor is almost so large, there almost isn’t a middle class.  You are luckier than most people around these parts but no one needs to know that.

The street smells and it doesn’t help that people are trying to sell food and other things on the sides of the roads.  Honestly you have been here for over two weeks already so you have become accustomed to the smell.  You turn your head to look at John and watch as his face scrunches up.  You begin to wonder how long John travelled through the desert.

You turn back around before he catches you looking at him, but before you turn around completely you notice him look at something to his left and flinch.  You look to the left but are only greeted with the sight of the heads of passersby.  You don’t really dwell on it too much, John was basically famous so it made sense he had a couple of enemies.

You finally push your way through the swarms of people back to the café, John just a little ways behind you.  You both enter the café and begin walking towards the young woman sitting alone writing in a notebook at a table all alone.  You notice some people murmuring as you two walk in, whether they’re talking about you or John is beyond you.

As you approach the table the woman stands and smiles, her lavender eyes glowing.  Before you can even open your mouth to speak she holds her hand out to John and smiles, “You must be John Egbert, it’s nice to finally meet you.  My name is Rose Lalonde.”

John blinks and smiles, “Nice to meet you Rose.”

All three of you sit down and order; Rose gets a pastry which John makes a face at, John orders some drink you’ve never heard of, and you just get a plain coffee.  You three eat and drink in comfortable silence for a while.

You are surprised when John breaks the silence, “If you guys don’t mind me asking, but is the rest of your group going to be joining us later?”

Rose glances at you, her eyes unreadable.  You speak up before she does, “Well you see-”

Rose interrupts you, “It’s just Dave and I and you now.  I’m under the impression you will be joining us, am I correct?”

John blinks, “Um, yes I’m joining, but I wasn’t aware that uh, I thought that you were a group not a duo.  But I still want to join you guys!”

Rose gives John a soft smile, “That’s good.”

You honestly weren’t expecting that, you really thought John was going to say no after finding out it was only you and Rose.

“So, how do you two know each other?” John asks.

You reply, “Half siblings.”

“Same mother, different fathers”, Rose pipes up.

Rose chuckles softly and writes something inside her notebook while smiling.  Suddenly she looks at John and holds out her hand.  She grins.  You know that grin, and it’s not a good sign.

“Glad to have made your acquaintance, John.  Welcome to our group.”

She shoots a look your way, you tense instantly.  You knew it was risky adding someone else to your group but, in your opinion, it seemed necessary for the two of you alone wasn’t cutting it anymore.  Rose, surprisingly, opposed the idea saying that it was necessary but would cause more problems than what it was worth.  You understood her concern and knew she was right but here you are sitting in a café adding someone to your duo.

John glances between the two of you, clearly sensing the mood, and quite obviously uncomfortable.

Silently you pray to whatever gods exist that something, anything, will break the tense at the table.  And, suddenly, the door to the café opens and in walks a tall young woman with glowing tan skin, short black hair, and green eyes walks in.  You thank whatever gods heeded your prayers.

You turn to Rose and smirk, “Hey, ain’t that your girlfriend?”

Rose looks at the woman before turning back to you, “Kanaya is not my girlfriend, brother dear.”

“Well, she’s a girl and she’s your friend, hence the term girl friend.”

Rose stands and steps away from the table, “But that was not what you were implying, now was it?”

She smiles at you and begins making her way towards the woman.  You chuckle softly.  Then you notice John watch Rose leave but as soon as he sees Kanaya, he visibly flinches and turns back to you.

You’ll ask him about that later, don’t want to scare John away just yet.  Besides he seems a little freaked out by Rose already, but Rose has that effect on almost everyone and John will probably get used to it.  Hopefully.

John wipes his sweaty forehead with his hand, you find this interesting because it’s not even that hot out today.  John catches your gaze, how he managed to do that is beyond you since your goggles completely cover your eyes so no one can see in.   John shots you a lopsided grin, “How do you survive in this heat?”

“Dude, it’s not even that hot out.  Man, if you can stand this, you are going to hate when August gets here.”

John throws his head and groans while trying to hide his smile at the same time.

“So, where you from?”

John smiles, “Why you ask?”

“Well, if you can’t stand this “ _heat_ ” you’re definitely not from the south.”

He laughs, “You’re right-”

“Damn straight, I’m always right”, you interrupt.

“Yeah sure, you are.  Anyways, I’m from the Third Northern Walled City.”

You mouth snaps open unintentionally, “Dude, are you rich or something?”

He throws his head back and laughs, “No!  Hell, even if I saved all the money I ever earned, I still won’t have enough to live in that damn place!  I lived in the outer provinces around the city with my dad.”

“I’m guessing you grew up hunting then, huh?”

“Yeah, we hunted animals for food and protection.  Zombies came every now and then, my dad taught me to fight them.  I was raised to fight them, not because they were evil or anything but because they were suffering.”

You nod along as he talks, noting how different your childhoods were.  And suddenly, it hits you just how young this man actually is, or looks, for that matter.

Which begs the question, “How old are you?”

John looks surprised by the change of subject but he quickly recovers, “Nineteen.”

You stare at John in shock, you’ve heard of some really young hunters before but the youngest one you have ever met was twenty three.

“When did you start hunting on your own?”

“I was fifteen I think.”

“Damn!  You are the youngest hunter I have ever met.”

“I’m not surprised, besides I started training when I was twelve.”

“Okay, you can shut up now.”

John smirks deviously, “Aw, did I hurt someone’s feelings?  Don’t worry about it, considering how massive your ego is, you’ll be fine in a couple of minutes.”

“Ouch, Egbert.  I felt that.  I thought we had something there, man.  Now I’ll have to tell my friends that my heart was broken by a nerd.”

“Oh really?  Well you can just go and fill those goggles with your salty tears.  And just remember this nerd has years of experience on you.”

This time you smirk, “Could’ve phrased that better, Egbert.”

His hand connects with his forehead as he laughs, “Oh god.”

He looks back up at you and smiles before taking a drink of whatever he’s drinking, you’re kind of afraid to ask what it is actually.  You decide to take a drink of your coffee that is now considerably cool.

John looks up from his drink and smiles, “So Mr. Strider, how old are you?”

You smirk, “Nineteen.”

He gives you a very confused look and opens his mouth to say something but you interrupt him, “Technically, I am a hunter but I’m not a zombie hunter like you.”

“Bounty hunter?” John offers.

You shrug, “Yeah, I guess you can call it that.”

“Do you work for someone?”

“Yeah, I do”, that’s all you say, and John doesn’t seem too phased by it, he just shrugs and starts drinking his mystery drink again.

You look back over at Rose who’s currently sit with Kanaya at the bar.  Those two always seemed to have gotten along, if there ever was a time they didn’t get along you won’t know about it because they’re so hard to read.  You can understand why Rose is so hard to read, she has spent her whole life around you and your brother.  Kanaya on the other hand, you don’t know what her deal is.

Rose catches your gaze and flicks her fingers at you from where she’s holding a drink that you’re pretty sure wasn’t there a second ago.  You turn back around to face John, he’s staring out the window next to your table.

“See something interesting, Egbert?”

He snaps out of his daze and smiles at you sheepishly, “Heh, sorry.  I got distracted.”

“It’s cool.”

Suddenly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bunch of what looks to be identification cards.  You raise an eyebrow when you notice that one of the cards has a red mark across it meaning it belongs to a woman.  You watch silently as his eyes go wide as he reads something on the cards.

Before you can think to stop yourself, you ask, “What’re you reading?”

He blinks and quickly slides the cards back into his pocket.  He looks at you and flashes a pathetically obvious fake smile your way, “Nothing important.”

You shrug it off, you can always investigate on your own, besides it’s best not to ask any questions and risk scaring him away just yet.

“Hey, we got an appointment with this arms dealer and we got to get going, can’t be late you know?”, you flash a smirk John’s way, he chuckles in return.  You both stand at the same time, you slap some money on the table.

You look at John, he’s rubbing the back of his neck almost worriedly.

“Something on your mind, Egbert?”

He laughs nervously before looking you in the eye, “Uh, is it alright if I tag along?  I just got into town today and I got nothing better to do…”

You snicker, “Egbert, do you really you think I care if you tag along or not?  You’re already part of our group.”

John smiles sheepishly at you, it’s kind of cute in an odd way considering how many hunters out there fear him.  You laugh under your breath and jerk your head in your sister’s direction.  John catches on and starts following you to your sister.  Rose looks up at you two and whispers something to Kanaya, which makes her laugh silently.  You roll your eyes, they are definitely in some sort of relationship no matter what Rose says.

As soon as you reach where they’re sitting at the bar, you smirk, “Sorry to cut the date short ladies, but we’ve got an appointment.”

Kanaya smiles at you and nods before turning back to Rose and says, “Pleasure speaking with you again, Rose.”

Rose smiles as they shake hands, “The pleasure is mine.”

You turn to John and pretend to gag, John stifles a laugh as Rose shoots you two an unimpressed look.  From behind Rose, you catch Kanaya laughing softly.  You knew they had something going on.

Rose stands and joins you and John, before you three leave the café, she turns and waves towards Kanaya.  You roll your eyes, Rose is definitely got a thing for Kanaya, it’s almost painful how obvious it is.

You three begin walking down the street to the arms shop, you stay on the right side of the road to get the shop faster.  You open your mouth to ask John something, when something catches your eye.  There’s a person on their knees crawling, _literally_ _crawling_ , on the ground.  You can’t tell if the person is female or male at this distance but they are definitely blind judging by how they’re dragging their legs and grabbing anything that comes within arm’s reach.

As you get closer you recognize the beggar, you’ve seen her a couple of times around the city, she’s always in a different place.  She has red, almost orange, hair and rose tinted glasses that cover her eyes.  And it never ceases to amaze you that despite how poor this part of the city is, people always stop and give her money or food.

When you walk past her you don’t even glance at her, but she doesn’t react to you instead she grabs John’s leg and pleads, “Please! Anything! Please!  I have nothing since my sister died!  It doesn’t have to be money or food just something.”

You and Rose walk off to the side and wait for John.  You watch John, curious as to how he will react to the beggar and you know Rose is equally as curious.

John’s eyes widen as the beggar continues to cling to his leg, pleading even more in that scratchy, hoarse voice.  After a couple of seconds, John reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out some money.  When he puts the money in her hands for her, she smiles widely and tries to push herself up to stand but only succeeds in losing her balance.  She holds her arms out to grab something to catch herself but her hands just slip down John’s coat, she does manage to catch John’s pocket.  Of course John grabs her arms and steadies her asking if she’s okay.  She smiles a shark like grin and nods.

Apparently, Rose is satisfied with what she has observed and she turns and begins walking the rest of the way towards the arms shop.  But you linger just long enough to see John say goodbye to the beggar and start walking over to you, but you also see the beggar pull something out of John’s coat.  John doesn’t notice.

When he walks back to you, you open your mouth to tell him what the beggar did, but he smiles at you and says, “Well, that was odd.  Or was that just me?”

There’s something about his smile as he says this, the devious gleam that lights up his face, and you smirk back.  John knew what the beggar was going to do, and something tells you he was prepared for it.

You have new respect for John Egbert.

You two catch up to Rose who’s already standing at the door of the arms shop.  She smiles coyly at you, you roll your eyes at her.  Of course Rose figured out what John was doing, she is the closest thing to psychic there is.

Rose turns her smile to John and asks him curiously, “Really?”

John blinks in confusion before smiling and shrugging.  Rose just shakes her and opens the door to the shop.  And you are immediately greeted with the sound of two people laughing.

…

Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and boy do you have a story for Karkat.  Now, just to clarify, you _pretend_ to be a blind beggar with a dead sister.  In all honestly, your sister is very much alive and you can definitely see.  After all, you had to somehow read the note you pulled from John’s pocket.

You cackle as you read over the note again.

_It’s rude to pick pocket, Terezi._

_I expected more from you._

_-John_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the late update, I've been really busy lately. This chapter is for my Terezi who probably would love to be in this AU.   
> So this AU is a little confusing setting-wise, it's in the 1900s, there are still absolute monarchies all over the place (which may or may not be important to the main plot *cough cough*), the monarchies are called cities which are normally surrounded by walls. The story takes place in a desert-like environment in the super poor districts of the city, and the city's pretty rich (you'll find out more about why later).  
> The zombie aspect of this comes in more later in the story. But trust me, the zombie aspect is pretty important backstory-wise.  
> And if you have questions, want to draw art, or a request, message me and let me know  
> Okay I'll shut up now.


End file.
